The economy’s woes are central to America’s choice of to whom they will entrust next month control of Congress, but by using the word “recession” only when Democrats allow it, Republicans have surrendered a powerful political weapon to show they understand the nation’s plight.

When the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, said on Monday that we could expect “some kind of recession six to nine months from now,” he demonstrated the success Democrats have had in counterprogramming the one we’re already in under President Biden.

A recession has long been termed as two quarters of negative economic growth — a definition accepted for so long that each new Federal Reserve chairman might as well have it tattooed on their faces.

When a second quarter of negative growth arrived earlier this year, though, Democrats refused to accept it. And Republicans, in an act of political malpractice, responded with meekness, allowing their opponents to deploy the old lawyer tactic: “Deny, deny, deny.”

One after another, White House officials parroted recession deniers like the National Economic Council Director, Brian Deese, who said, “Certainly in terms of the technical definition, it’s not a recession,” and Treasury Secretary Yellen who dismissed the “common definition.”

What a contrast to, say, the final years of President George W. Bush’s term, when Democrats trotted out the same doom-and-gloom they’d deployed against his father in 1992. As in football, you keep running the same play until the other team stops it.

Even though the younger Mr. Bush’s GDP hadn’t obliged by contracting — it was on a tear of 24 straight quarters of expansion as the 2008 election loomed — Democrats’ criteria were subjective with him at the helm. The New York Times wrote in the standard line that it “feels like a recession.” 

The human brain’s operating system is programmed to focus on the negative. So, telling voters that things aren’t as bad as they feel wasn’t an easy case for Mr. Bush to make, and unlike Mr. Biden, he had far better numbers on his side.

Democrats don’t face any such unified messaging from Republican candidates. Forgotten are the lessons of President Reagan who, when faced with the task of running against an inflationary economy similar to Mr. Biden’s, nuked the spin from orbit.

In the shadow of the Statue of Liberty in Jersey City, Mr. Reagan savaged his opponent’s attempt to paint a smiley face on manifest economic pain. President Carter, he said, “tries to tell us that we are ‘only’ in a recession, not a depression, as if definitions — words — relieve our suffering.

“Let it show on the record,” he said, “that when the American people cried out for economic help, Jimmy Carter took refuge behind a dictionary. Well, if it’s a definition he wants, I’ll give him one. A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”

The White House claims that joblessness isn’t the crisis for Mr. Biden that it was for Mr. Carter, with October’s unemployment at 3.5 percent. But this is the U-3 number, measuring only those looking for jobs, ignoring factors such as the 60 percent of businesses, according to the Chamber of Commerce, desperate to fill positions.

U-3 was also low under Bush the Younger, which is why Democrats focused instead on the U-6 number, which includes those who have given up looking for work. The U-6 figure under Mr. Biden is 6.7 percent, about twice what he touts.

The U-6 figure was a powerful and ubiquitous tool used against Mr. Bush. When combined with today’s Labor Participation Rate only in the mid-60s, it would help expose the myth of a robust economy and buttress the case for a recession, yet it’s absent from GOP campaigns.

According to a poll by Monmouth University, only 10 percent of Americans say the nation is on the right track with Democrats in power. Republicans may win by default, but if they fall short, they’ll rue letting the recession deniers hide behind a dictionary.